Library cuts deny children glorious addiction

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

So your solution for the single mom who doesn't like that her kid is stuck in an urban school district with a 30% graduation rate is to...do nothing? Because vouchers might harm the wonderful egalitarian system we have today?

My problem isn't with vouchers per se, but with any voucher system that does not take into account disparities in access and schooling costs, or leaves parents with little option but to send their kid to parochial school because it's the only one within reach that gets adequate funding. Propose a system that doesn't screw over the people with the least ability to make use of it.

Let's say a school in an impoverished area normally is allotted $3,000 per year per student, but in an area with more property tax revenue each student is allotted $6,000 and the education costs, facilities etc, have grown to match it. Will the voucher given to the person in the poor area be based on their local tax revenue, or the costs of the school they wish to send their kid to? Who pays the difference?

Do we honestly believe the higher graduation rate in private schools, or schools in affluent areas, are due to some magically better system or a staff of Miracle Workers? In some school districts, getting any graduation is a hard won battle accomplished against impossible odds by teachers dealing with disenfranchised kids from absent families. Those schools are like outposts in hostile territory plagued by social and economic inequality. That isn't gonna disappear by installing an education system based on the "to each according to what he can afford" free-market fantasy that caused these social problems to begin with.

Ya know..and stuff. Whatever.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

So your solution for the single mom who doesn't like that her kid is stuck in an urban school district with a 30% graduation rate is to...do nothing? Because vouchers might harm the wonderful egalitarian system we have today?

So every child gets a voucher and that voucher will count as payment in full to the richest private school that accepts vouchers?

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

My problem isn't with vouchers per se, but with any voucher system that does not take into account disparities in access and schooling costs, or leaves parents with little option but to send their kid to parochial school because it's the only one within reach that gets adequate funding. Propose a system that doesn't screw over the people with the least ability to make use of it.


Let's say a school in an impoverished area normally is allotted $3,000 per year per student, but in an area with more property tax revenue each student is allotted $6,000 and the education costs, facilities etc, have grown to match it. Will the voucher given to the person in the poor area be based on their local tax revenue, or the costs of the school they wish to send their kid to? Who pays the difference?

In most cases, impoverished urban school districts spend more on students than suburban school districts. Chicago Public Schools spent $11,500 per student in 2008 (the last year I could find data for); Naperville schools (Naperville is a wealthy suburb) spent $11,200 per student. I chose these because I am familiar with these areas, but you'll find similar figures if you look at DC or NY.

So if you give kids vouchers based on their local per student population, you'll be competitive with wealthier counties.

[/quote]

Do we honestly believe the higher graduation rate in private schools, or schools in affluent areas, are due to some magically better system or a staff of Miracle Workers? In some school districts, getting any graduation is a hard won battle accomplished against impossible odds by teachers dealing with disenfranchised kids from absent families. [/QUOTE]
I don't really disagree with any of this; a student living an a home with two well educated parents is going to be - statistically, anyway - much better off in many ways than a student raised by a poorly educated single parent living on welfare.

Those schools are like outposts in hostile territory plagued by social and economic inequality.

I agree with your description of the schools. What I don't understand is why you want to keep the status quo. These schools have *terrible* outcomes. It's why parents with means will do anything to get their kids out of them.

Why don't you think we should do something for kids without means?

That isn't gonna disappear by installing an education system based on the "to each according to what he can afford" free-market fantasy that caused these social problems to begin with.

Of course it might not work. But what we have now isn't working either - in fact, it's hard to imagine anything working less well - and we've been trying to fix these schools for 30 years at least.

And of course our current school system is *already* based on a "to each according to what he can afford paradigm." And it's working quite well for those who can afford to move to better schools...and horribly for those who can't afford to move.

Vouchers will provide more options for the poor. Maintaining the status quo won't. And the voucher system is very similar to the system we use for financing higher education in the US; it's not some weird right-wing construct.

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

So every child gets a voucher and that voucher will count as payment in full to the richest private school that accepts vouchers?

No; they would be forced to attend private schools where the tuition (using the above numbers) was $11,500 (plus any savings, which I wouldn't count on). Do you think attending a school like that would provide worse outcomes than we currently have?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

No; they would be forced to attend private schools where the tuition (using the above numbers) was $11,500 (plus any savings, which I wouldn't count on). Do you think attending a school like that would provide worse outcomes than we currently have?

Now that's ridiculous. All children in a given region (city wide, county wide, or other multiple school district area) should receive vouchers with the same dollar amount. Also, any private school in that region that accepts vouchers in any form, must accept a voucher as payment in full. Also, any child who uses a voucher will not be allowed to attend a school outside of their region.

[wyndslash]

woah, your tuitions are really high @_@ maybe they should send those kids over here to study we already have tons of foreigners and their children being educated here

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by faithbw

As long as we main the current status quo in terms of funding education, there will always be gross inequality in the public school systems in the US. Which is sad. It's really unfair that a child in a small rural school district or living in certain neighborhoods in a city are more likely to have an inferior education that a child living in a middle class or posh suburb.

And yet, that is exactly what we are heading towards. There will be a greater divide between the haves and the have nots. One day (who knows when) the people of our great land will wake up and wonder what happened to this great country of ours. Where we used to care about the well being of all and not just the well being of those who can afford it.

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

I agree with your description of the schools. What I don't understand is why you want to keep the status quo. These schools have *terrible* outcomes. It's why parents with means will do anything to get their kids out of them.

I just suspect that it's the communities that have the terrible outcomes, more so than the schools. Take a private school and swap it with an inner city school, leaving the students in place. You think the graduation rates would hold? Maybe. Private schools don't necessarily do a better job, though I'm sure some do, but they certainly have an easier one (private school: "No formal education training? No problem!).

Beverly Hills doesn't have a lower crime rate than East LA because their cops do a better job. Eddie Murphy excluded.

As Tubemonkey points out, vouchers would also need to come along with increased government regulation, which is not unfair to ask of institutions receiving tax funds. The voucher would need to be based on the tuition of the target school, so that schools wouldn't be able to intentionally hike tuition in order to put up a class-barrier. With the government paying their salaries, their teachers should also be required to meet actual teaching certifications, which many private schools don't require. The fact that they've done well with a custom-tailored student body is no indicator of performance once their doors are flung wide open. As I stated, it isn't vouchers themselves I think are flawed, but if you're gonna do it, do it right.

Let's talk about books. Also I find it amusing that I'm debating people who I strongly agree with on issues in other threads, and the other way around. Group hug.

[rogue_librarian]

This is getting just a tad too political for my taste... nothing wrong with that, as such, but are you sure this is still in line with the core issues of this forum, i.e. books and (e)reading? Wasn't there a special opt-in section of the forums for this kind of thing?

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

This is getting just a tad too political for my taste... nothing wrong with that, as such, but are you sure this is still in line with the core issues of this forum, i.e. books and (e)reading? Wasn't there a special opt-in section of the forums for this kind of thing?

True. On the bright side, everyone is pretty civil around here, so a little subject-chaos isn't so bad. I'm worn out on the subject, though, ha. How about them, er, publishers?

[DJHARKAVY]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

The kids with parents who can't or won't do whatever it takes to get their kid to a better school, well they deserve poor education anyway. Someone has to work menial labor jobs after all, especially if those same politicians who support vouchers continue to support cracking down on immigrati- hey wait a minute. I see what they're doin. Actually quite brilliant.

My son goes to a public school in NYC. He gets an excellent education, because we keep an eye on what he is doing, and we will deal with any problems that he has.

You can get an excellent education anywhere. In fact, the school district isn't the biggest determining factor, it is the emphasis that parents put on the education in the first place.

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

So your solution for the single mom who doesn't like that her kid is stuck in an urban school district with a 30% graduation rate is to...do nothing? Because vouchers might harm the wonderful egalitarian system we have today?

I would have the kid be part of the 30%. And take advantage of the classes offered. I taught at one of the worst schools in NYC and we still had AP classes for the few students who worked...

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by DJHARKAVY

You can get an excellent education anywhere. In fact, the school district isn't the biggest determining factor, it is the emphasis that parents put on the education in the first place.

That's why we should offer parental vouchers! If children are unhappy with their underperforming parents (and it's not the kids fault that they ended up with the parents they did), they should receive a voucher that would permit them to be parented by parents *they* choose.

Some details will need to be worked out, of course.

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

That's why we should offer parental vouchers! If children are unhappy with their underperforming parents (and it's not the kids fault that they ended up with the parents they did), they should receive a voucher that would permit them to be parented by parents *they* choose.

Some details will need to be worked out, of course.

I would have been in a different home by age ten. My mom made scrambled eggs in the microwave.

Ultimately my opinions on the education matter are for entertainment purposes only. I could be totally off-base, have no solution, and withdraw my candidacy for office.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

i don't quite understand their criteria for "banning" a book. is it one whose ideas challenge what they believe to be "right" and "moral"? D: we don't have banned books here, i think.

Also, depending on the school all students have access to all the books in the library. So what may be appropriate for 14 years olds may not be for 6 year olds.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Also, depending on the school all students have access to all the books in the library. So what may be appropriate for 14 years olds may not be for 6 year olds.

I really think that the librarians (of whom I would have expected much more) are being borderline dishonest (and certainly disingenuous) with their promotion of banned book week. And I'm strongly opposed to banning books; and very happen we've moved beyond the days when Henry Miller's books were seized at the border and not permitted to be imported (although they were legal in France); or when Lolita was banned in France (but permitted in the US). [Yeah, I don't follow that either]. And of course the fatwa against Salman Rusdie was another horrible example of a de facto attempt to ban books.

However, when you follow up on banned books week, it turns out that they are not really talking about banned books, and they're not encouraging people to read Henry Miller or Nabokov or Solzhenitsn. What they're really talking about is books that have been "challenged" - meaning (in every case I know of) that a parent has followed some sort of administrative procedure to attempt to get a book removed from a school library on the basis that it's inappropriate for their children. Pretty much never on grounds that I would support.

There are at least two levels of deception going on. The first is defining a book as "banned" if it is removed from a school library somewhere - leading to the ludicrous result that "Harry Potter," AFAIK the best selling book series in the US, is listed as "banned." That's just dishonest. Removing a book from one school library is not "banning" the book, particularly when it is displayed prominently for sale in pretty much every book store, grocery, or gas station that sells books.

The second issue, and to me the worst, is the conflation of "banned" with "challenged," particularly in the context of school libraries. While I don't think that any of the books on the most recent list I saw should be removed from school libraries, I think it is very important that parents have the right to challenge what is going on at their school. If my kid attended a middle school library that had a copy of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" or "The Turner Diaries," I would be the first one to request that those books be removed. The freedom to challenge acts our government takes is *just as important* as the first amendment, and stigmatizing people who have the temerity to question the judgment of a school librarian is not a good thing at all.

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

There are at least two levels of deception going on. The first is defining a book as "banned" if it is removed from a school library somewhere - leading to the ludicrous result that "Harry Potter," AFAIK the best selling book series in the US, is listed as "banned." That's just dishonest. Removing a book from one school library is not "banning" the book, particularly when it is displayed prominently for sale in pretty much every book store, grocery, or gas station that sells books.

The second issue, and to me the worst, is the conflation of "banned" with "challenged," particularly in the context of school libraries. While I don't think that any of the books on the most recent list I saw should be removed from school libraries, I think it is very important that parents have the right to challenge what is going on at their school. If my kid attended a middle school library that had a copy of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" or "The Turner Diaries," I would be the first one to request that those books be removed. The freedom to challenge acts our government takes is *just as important* as the first amendment, and stigmatizing people who have the temerity to question the judgment of a school librarian is not a good thing at all.

Sorry I am not sure I agree with you. What would be required for you to say a book is “banned?” A national law prohibiting the distribution of the book? Or a similar state, or local law? Same question for school libraries. I submit “banned” is appropriate anytime on group of the public is able to exert pressure on a library sufficient to cause a book to be made unavailable.

It would be nice if all libraries and librarians were heroic defenders of free speech, but the truth is when even a small group complains loud enough a book can be “banned” at least locally because it is tough to fight a dedicated group of fanatics. Especially for institutions dependent on public funding, and hence the whims of politicians.